1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an opening switch for an opening and closing body such as a trunk lid of a vehicle.
Priority is claimed on Japanese Patent Application No. 2004-242938, filed Aug. 23, 2004, the content of which is incorporated herein by reference.
2. Description of Related Art
There are vehicles (e.g., motorcars) having an opening switch for an opening and closing body (e.g., a trunk lid) from the outside. The opening switch may be a release switch provided in an opening behind a hand-operated handle of a rear door, and the latch of an electric lock system may be released by operating the release switch (see Japanese Unexamined Patent Application, First Publication No. 2003-127668).
In the above conventional opening switch, the operating direction of the switch may coincide with the operating direction for opening the rear door, thereby allowing for smoothly performing a series of operations from pressing the switch to opening the rear door. However, the conventional structure requires a process of searching for the position of the opening switch (which is a push button type) in the opening where the switch is provided. In particular, when the opening switch is covered with a garnish or the like, it is difficult to find the position of such a push button switch.
In order to solve this problem, the size of the switch may be increased so as to make it easy to find the switch position. However, in this case, a larger area and space are occupied by the switch. In addition, pushing force cannot be easily concentrated on such a wide area; thus, the pushing operation may not be easily performed.